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Schematic plan · World War I (Western Front 1914)

First Battle of the Aisne

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A schematic plan, generated from the statistics of the CAA Database of Battles: the armies' size and width, the hours of fighting, the plan of attack and the outcome are as recorded; the ground and the positions are not.
Rolling, Mixed groundCentreCentreLeft wingRight wingLeft wingRight wingReserveReserve010 km20 kmN

France (Fr 5th & 6th Armies, Br Exped Force, 343,000 men under Gen Joffre) attacked Germany (Ger 1st, 7th & 2nd Armies, 290,000 men under Gen Falkenhayn) in France. The CAA Database of Battles records 120 hours of fighting on a front of 112 km, a frontal attack against hasty defense and prepared defense, and that Germany held. Losses: France 50,000 (15%), Germany 30,000 (10%).

This plan is generated from those figures. It shows the shape of the battle the database describes: the size and width of the armies, the plan of attack and the outcome. It does not show where the units actually stood.

The armies

France

Gen Joffre

UnitArmMen
France left wingInfantry82,320
France centreInfantry109,760
France right wingInfantry82,320
France reserveInfantry68,600
Gen JoffreCommander—
In this plan343,000

Germany

Gen Falkenhayn

UnitArmMen
Germany left wingInfantry69,600
Germany centreInfantry92,800
Germany right wingInfantry69,600
Germany reserveInfantry58,000
Gen FalkenhaynCommander—
In this plan290,000

What the sources report

FranceGermany
Strength, this plan343,000290,000
Losses, this plan50,00030,000

In the CAA Database of Battles

CDB90 no. 277, “The Aisne”, compiled for the US Army to study what decides battles. These are the figures a what-if engine can be calibrated against.

Fighting
120 hours
Winner
the defender
Terrain
Rolling, Mixed
Weather
Wet, Light precipitation, Temperate, Autumn, Temperate
Defender’s posture
Hasty defense, Prepared defense
Front width
112 km (attacker), 112 km (defender)
ForceStrengthLossesHorseGunsPlan and outcome
Franceattacker343,00050,0000—Frontal attack; Repulse; Stalemate
Germanydefender290,00030,0000—Defensive/offensive plan; Frontal attack; Stalemate

Attacker’s advantages momentum +1

CDB90 (US Army Concepts Analysis Agency, 1990), tidy edition by Jeffrey B. Arnold; data under ODC-BY 1.0.

Notes

On this reconstruction

Generated automatically from the statistics in CDB90. Frontages, depths, distances, the order of events and the terrain are schematic: they follow the recorded strengths, front widths, hours of fighting, tactical plan and outcome, not maps or accounts of the battle. The sources give no hours; the timing is conjectural.

Sources

Facts gathered from Wikidata (CC0), Wikipedia (CC BY-SA 4.0) and Wikimedia Commons (licence per file); the plan and its text are timeastra’s own.